


Headpiece Filled With Straw

by EudociaCovert



Series: Death's Other Kingdom [2]
Category: The Hollow (Cartoon)
Genre: All ominous things begin with "The", Dystopia, Friendship, Gen, Platonic Cuddling, Welp guess I'm falling down this rabbit hole, Worldbuilding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 06:02:59
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,586
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14994383
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EudociaCovert/pseuds/EudociaCovert
Summary: Mira spends the morning with her team, and faces a problem at school.





	Headpiece Filled With Straw

**Author's Note:**

> Okay, I guess this is a thing that's happening. I guess this is a series now. Let me know what you guys think!

When Mira wakes up it’s to the faint glow of her digital clock. Kai’s still curled up and drooling, and Adam is a fidgety mess. It’s before five then.

“Hey,” she greets him, her voice scratchy from slumber.

“A bit early, Mira. Try sleeping a little longer.”

“No can do!” She rubs at her face, stretches her arms up and back, and curls into a sitting position. “Have you been awake long?”

Adam shrugs a shoulder and doesn’t look away from the door, his body tense.

“Do you need me to take watch, or…”

“Nah, it’s fine.” He looks at her, smiles. He always has a good smile, but there’s something warm about it when they’re outside the game. He’ll develop shades of that warmth sometimes, depending mostly on how long they’ve been in The Hollow and how many times they’ve nearly died, but there’s something more to it when he’s all the way Adam, memories intact. History, maybe. “Thanks for the offer.”

“Sure.” She scoots down until she can swing her legs around and sit next to him. Kai’s still sleeping away. “You want to talk about the game more, don’t you?”

“Things don’t fit,” Adam states grimly. “I’m not sure how much is actual trouble and how much is post-game paranoia.”

“I don’t think the glitching was paranoia.”

“Yeah, but it’s more than that. Like, how were those other kids so sure it was a game?”

Mira’s mind blinks awake, and she narrows her eyes. “We’ve never played them before, or had that particular gamemaster. You’re worried we got set up.”

“The second team didn’t show any adverse effects. Either the code corruption didn’t affect the loser protocol, or they were pulled early and kept in stasis. That makes less sense to me, it’s more dramatic to parade the losing team around a bit before the grand finale then it is to leave them in their chairs until the very end.”

“He seemed the dramatic type.”

“Exactly. Also, pulling them while there was even the smallest chance they could make it on their own would give them an opportunity to contend the win, but they didn’t say anything about it. So, maybe they did get hit with the glitch, but had some way to counteract it. Because they already knew it was coming, like they already knew it was a game.”

Mira nudges her friend with a shoulder. “A little too by the book there, law man. The Hollow is underground, playing it is technically illegal. There isn’t much players can successfully hold over gamemasters. I mean, crowd disapproval, but that depends on how much the masses like you at the moment and I’m pretty sure those other kids came off as the heel this run.”

“Right, right, of course.” Adam runs a hand through his hair. “That’s what I was saying earlier. Post-game paranoia.”

“I don’t know what we’re talking about,” Kai interjects, eyes still closed, “but you, my friend, have the instincts of a barracuda. If you think something’s up, something’s probably up.”

Kai’s big toe is sticking out of a hole in his socks. Mira reaches over and pinches it. He pulls away with a displeased grumble. “Did we wake you?”

“Oh no, it’s perfectly natural for me to be aware before the Disengage, you two worrywarts had nothing to do with it at all.”

Adam snorts. “Sorry dude.”

Kai waves him off, still stubbornly keeping his eyes closed. “You’re fine, I’m just gonna saw a couple more logs before-“

There’s a familiar deep toned clicking as the door unlocks, the blare of noise that marks the end of curfew, and the block’s lights blink on. Mira squints at the brightness, Kai groans in despair, and every muscle in Adam’s body relaxes. He really can’t stand feeling trapped. It’s one of the many reasons Adam is so good at playing The Hollow; while she and Kai might get caught up in dead-end quests meant to catch their attention and waste precious time, even without memories Adam is always buzzing with an inner litany of _let me_ _out, let me out, out out out._

“So, are we doing debrief version two?” Kai asks when he stops whining at the unfairness of everything ever.

“No, it’s okay.” Adam shakes his head, like he can physically shake himself free of his concerns. “Unless you have something else to add.”

“…We’re not going to play that team again, are we?”

Mira’s back straightens at the same time Adam’s eyes turn to flint. “Right. They messed with you, didn’t they.”

“I was stupid.”

“You were alone, that’s different.” To Adam, that’s the end of it. It’s something they don’t say much, but all know. Without the team Kai clings to anyone, Mira loses sight of the big picture, and Adam’s a bit of a sociopath. Nothing new there.

Mira reaches for that toe again. Kai nearly folds himself in half keeping it away from her. “I’ve actually lost us a game by being too trusting,” she points out. It was earlier in their career, they demanded a rematch and beat that team soundly, but somehow it’s still a bit devastating to think about. “And Adam’s lost one by not trusting at all. We’re not upset.”

“We’ll blacklist tournaments they’re in,” Adam decides. “That work for you?”

“Sorry. I don’t mean to be a wuss, it’s just after… after we came back… Venessa was… she looked… she seemed…”

Before she even realizes she was moving Mira’s crawled over to the boy and boxed his head in with her arms. Kai blinks up at her, eyes wide. “What did she do, Kai?”

“I’m fine, sheesh… it’s nothing. Post-game paranoia, like Adam’s got. We’re not playing them again, right? So, it doesn’t matter.”

Mira leans back. After a moment studying the two of them, Adam nods. “Okay, definitely blacklisted. Don’t worry about it anymore.”

Kai sighs, relaxing. “Okay, I won’t.”

“You do, however, have a class in an hour that you _should_ be worried about.”

“Screw you Adam, let me be happy.”

“Be happy after you talk the computers out of annihilating us all for bad grades.”

 “Meet in the caf for lunch?” Mira asks, pulling herself to her feet. The boys agree, and immediately fall back into comfortable bickering.

She grabs her bath basket and makes for the floor showers, sending one last look towards her teammates before she closes the door behind her. She feels warm long before the shower heats up.

\--

Gwen is the only classmate Mira knows by name, and she hates her. She’s tall, with long hair, a constant twist to her lips, and pale eyes. She’s easy to spot as she lounges in the hallway outside their shared classroom, positioned just out of reach of the hall’s security camera. Mira’s a person who’s prettier in motion than she is standing still. Gwen’s the exact opposite.

“Congratulations on your win,” she calls out when Mira’s close enough.

“Thanks,” Mira bites out. “So glad to see you caught the show, you model student you.”

“There’s no rule against watching,” Gwen points out, smirk in place. “Just paying to watch, and playing. Which leads us to…”

Mira fishes a flash drive out of her pocket and holds it out. “Here.”

“Excellent.”

“They’re going to figure it out. The L.E.A.R.N. System is fantastic at spotting cheaters.”

Gwen narrows her eyes. “Then you better be on your toes, because if I go down I’ll tell everyone that you’re a Hollow player, and all this prize chasing of yours will be for nothing. Because that’s what you three are so desperate about, isn’t it? The money?” She steps closer, using her height to make Mira crane her neck. “Darling, you’re trying to avoid the Wipe, aren’t you?”

The classroom door swings open. Mira ducks around Gwen and into the room, selecting her favorite chair before the rest of the class trickles in. She sits down, clenching her fists to hide the way they tremble. It’s anger, more than it’s fear.

Somehow the L.E.A.R.N. chairs are always less comfortable than the Hollow versions, which is funny because Mira’s pretty sure it’s the same chair, or a bootleg version of it. Maybe it’s because players aren’t as renewable a resource as students are, so they want them more comfortable. Maybe it’s because instead of Kai on her right, it’s Gwen, stealthily inserting the flash drive full of homework Mira finished for her into a port at the chair’s base.

There’s a small prick at the base of Mira’s neck, and she blacks out. When her vision returns she’s seated at a school desk, suspended in an artificial world of white. Alone.

“Welcome to the L.E.A.R.N. System,” A familiar computer-generated voice intones. “While you test your retention of your last lesson with this quiz, your subconscious is being prepped for your next lesson. Answer well! Since this is the first quiz of the week your score will determine how much free time you will be allowed for the next seven days. If you score within the top five percent of L.E.A.R.N. students you will even be allowed a supervised trip off campus. Good luck!”

 A paper appears on the desk, and a pencil materializes in Mira's hand.

Mira thinks that the best part of The Hollow is how no matter how hard the problems they face there seem, there’s always a right answer to be found.


End file.
